NL ‘negotiating dismantling ICC’ to appease Trump, protect Netanyahu

The Netherlands government is negotiating the ‘dismantling’ of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and capitulating to US bullying to protect Israel and grant immunity to war criminals.

Dismembering international law

The disempowerment of the court currently under negotiation at the UN in New York are clearly aimed at protecting Israeli and US war criminals from accountability and consequences for their genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. These include:

• giving immunity to nationals of states that don’t subscribe to the ICC – the most notable examples are the US and Israel – no matter where and against whom their crimes are committed
• giving immunity to heads of state
• barring the court from intervening if a country’s own laws legalise the crimes, or if laws exist to punish the crimes – even if the country’s government shows no interest in applying them

Israel and the US have tried to argue – unsuccessfully – at the ICC and International Court of Justice (ICJ), to avoid arrest warrants and genocide findings, that as non-signatories they are not subject to the international law that the ICC administers. International law dictates that if the victims are signatories, then the international courts have jurisdiction. Palestine is a signatory. ‘Universal jurisdiction‘, allowing any country to prosecute for genocide and similar crimes no matter where the crimes were committed, would also be negated.

The ICC changes, if conceded, would grant immunity from prosecution at the ICC to any Israeli or US genocider and war criminal – or those from any other nation that either has never signed, or withdraws from, the ICC.

The Rights Forum, founded by former government ministers and law professors, concludes that:

if the aforementioned restrictions are adopted, there will be nothing left of the Court.

Resist the bullies

The planned capitulation comes after months of US sanctions against ICC judges and other officials designed to bring the court and its supporters to their knees. But there is still some hope: in order to neuter the ICC, two thirds of signatory nations – ‘States Parties’ – must agree to amend the ICC’s founding document, the Rome Statute. It must then be ‘ratified’ by seven eighths of States Parties before it comes into force.

The US successfully bullied, bribed and intimidated the states of the ICC’s ‘Bureau’ into sacking the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan, even though repeated judges’ inquiries had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Khan. The ICC even capitulated and participated in its own undermining, changing voting rules for the Khan decision to ensure his downfall.

Khan had been targeted by the US and Israel – including threats to his family – for obtaining arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli ‘defence’ minister Yoav Gallant for their crimes in Gaza. The Trump regime then declared war on the ICC, vowing its destruction.

Whether similar bullying and manipulation could create majorities of two thirds and then seven eights among ICC signatory states remains to be seen, but the risk is very real. The EU continues to kowtow to the US, refusing to activate its legal mechanisms to neutralise US sanctions against the ICC and others – and even imposing its own sanctions on journalists who dare to expose Israel’s, or Ukraine’s, crimes. Anyone who relies on EU nations or the UK to stand up to the US is stretching credulity.

The Rights Forum’s conclusion, if the capitulation proceeds, is grim:

By relinquishing certain aspects of the International Criminal Court, the US might be persuaded to lift or ease the sanctions against the Court. In practice, this would amount to amputating the Court’s limbs. What would then remain is a powerless trunk-court.